Afterlife
by peachandbetty
Summary: Post-FT. Adapting to life after you've been declared publicly dead is uncharted territory for Relena. Thankfully, she'd been recently affianced to the expert.
1. Chapter 1

_The lovely Athenise from Tumblr has translated the FT epilogue for me, so this is what I promised to her for all the cutesy details spelled out in good old English. Now, I'm not a FT fan but I can't help but love the fact 1xR is canon. I do, however, take issue with the way it was handled. And so, this is my take on what happens after the proposal. I'll be incorporating FT canon but...in my way._

 _Which means M rating, naturally._

 **Part 1 - Disappearing**

Leaving the lives they know behind, Relena got a taste of what her brother must have gone through those 30 years prior.

After a life of being accustomed to having what she needed at hand and readily available, her sudden lack of resources was the first thing to make itself apparent. Her money was a good as useless. That was Relena Peacecraft's money. She no longer even had the name to call her own, let alone the assets.

The smell of bread baking from a local café drew her in and just as quickly, a firm hand on her hip steered her away from her path. She looked up at her recently acquired fiancé questioningly before her reached into his pocket and handed her a slightly squashed protein bar.

She had always held in the highest regard the need to keep a stiff upper lip in tight situations, and for a short while she had done just that. As Heero checked them into a motel in the Martian outback, using what she could only assume was a hacked credit card, his first instruction to her was to take a bath.

He'd said it commandingly, and she'd almost taken offence to it coming from the man who had only a day ago claimed her for marriage, until she realised he was simply removing the option for her to challenge him. There was a reason he wanted her to be alone.

When the sting of the water washed over her grimy body, she watched the pattern of ripples and listened to the echoes off the tiles walls. It was then that a stiff upper lip morphed quickly into a trembling bottom one, and she tasted salty droplets fall down her cheeks and felt a pain inside her chest that preluded the flood.

When she came out, she was overly conscious that not only did her face betray every sign of her distress, red puffiness included, but that her options for attire had been limited to a towel that only barely covered the essential parts.

She supposed she shouldn't feel the need to be shy around him, considering their current status, but it was yet another thing that she would have to get used to. She'd always been brought up to hold in regard certain values, and the modesty of women was one of them. On their way in, she had seen many a couple, clearly unmarried, clinging to each other as they picked their keys up from the kiosk. It was so natural to others, that she felt positively alien to feel as she did in that moment.

She peered out from around the corner of the bathroom door. She was relieved to see him laying on the bed with his eyes closed. Unsure if he was asleep, and sure he was the type who slept lightly anyway, she cleared her throat nervously to get his attention.

When his eyes opened, he was staring right at her, her stomach fluttered and she felt heat rush to her face. Those eyes were always intense, but given their current situation she could help but feel all but naked, despite the towel and door between them.

"I'm coming out," she tried to sound normal but it came out off-key in a way that made her sound very silly.

One hand holding the towel closed and the other giving one last tug down at the back, she came out from behind the door, making a conscious effort not to make eye contact with him again.

"I'm going to order some food," he said, apparently ignorant to her distress. She wasn't sure if he was truly unknowing of her thoughts, of if her was simply doing her the courtesy of not acknowledging them, but she was thankful for it. Emboldened, she reached for her clothes before hesitating.

Mottled with dirt, she couldn't very well wear what she had taken off. Those were Relena Peacecraft's clothes, and she had died in them.

"I can pick up some things on the way out?" He offered, as though reading her mind, and she couldn't help but smile. She'd heard lamentations about men not knowing what women want but Heero so far had been everything she needed, a firm hand guiding her to where she needed to be. She needed to survive this, and though she had no idea how, she had no doubt in her mind that he did.

"Some clothes would be nice. Some jeans, a top, some underwe…" She stopped herself short of that sentence with a poorly disguised cough, her face burning. She had just asked Heero Yuy to buy her undergarments a day into their relationship. If only her mother knew.

When she saw the tugging of his lips, she knew he was no longer attempting to save her embarrassment but she didn't really care. She'd not seen Heero smile much, but that amused smirk made all awareness of her near undress return tenfold.

In the echo of her mind, a naughty part of her wondered what would happen if she dropped her towel.

Shocked by the direction of her own thought, she subconsciously clutched the thin white cloth tighter around her.

"28B," he stated, "shouldn't be hard to find." He took up from her bed, walked over to the chair where she'd dumped her clothes and replaced the brassier she'd apparently been holding all along back on top.

Face flushing in the knowledge he'd been fondling her undergarment while she was bathing, she turned to give him a piece of her mind.

The feeling of his hand, rough and calloused, gently pushing her damp hair behind her ears and tipping her face up to look at his own stopped all thoughts in their tracks.

"Relena," he spoke softly, his deep timbre familiar and rich. He touched his forehead to hers, his eyes searching hers in a way that made her chest flutter. "Stop trying to be brave. Especially not for me."

She felt the warmth of his breath against her, the vibration of his voice through her. When his other hand slipped around her back, a blank fuzziness took over her senses, replaced with nothing but the feel of him touching her, guiding her closer to him, against him, with a gentle strength that was uniquely his.

"Don't open the door." He commanded softly, before the chill of the room suddenly made itself apparent where his warmth had once been.

Slightly dazed and with a warmth in her that had been previously absent, even in the heat of the bath tub, she noticed for the first time since her assassination that she was calm. She lay down on the slightly stiff sheets one could expect from an establishment of this nature and took a deep breath.

Two things were certain at this point.

Whatever the future held in store for her, Heero would be instrumental in it.

And that the way her heart thrummed in her chest at the memory of his touch, however innocent and however meant to simply reassure her, promised that marriage would only be the beginning of it.


	2. Chapter 2

You people have no idea how tempting it was to take this chapter in a very different direction. I am the epitome of restraint.

 **2\. Finding a home**

It surprised Heero how quickly Relena had gotten used to life in the rough, though he was acutely aware that living from motel to motel was far from his own definition of such.

As she dumped their most recent resupply of food, drink and other essentials into the back seat of a car he'd acquired (the means of which she didn't need to know about), she was smiling, a far cry from the woman who'd not a few weeks ago had sobbed her frustrations into a bath tub.

He felt guilty, in the way he supposed a significant other was supposed to feel guilty, in that he couldn't protect her from the shock of a vastly different life. But it was a necessary evil, and he knew she didn't blame him for it. That didn't stop the gnawing sensation that told him he should be… _better._

"So, where are we going next?" She chirped, delicately pulling apart the wrapper of a hot wrap. The smell of cheap additives filled the car and his stomach growled, prompting him to take his own from the paper bag.

"Would you believe there's a village called Eden?" He asked, getting the confused look he was expecting. It was a new sensation to him, really, that pride one gets when you've taken the time to painstakingly put together a plan purely for the benefit of another and to see it bear fruit.

He liked it.

"You're joking, aren't you?" She replied mater-of-factly, sure that this was another of his poker-faced jests.

For once, Heero didn't find it amusing.

"No…I'm serious." He explained awkwardly, but any disheartened feeling he'd had disappeared when her face suddenly lit up.

"Truly?!" She asked, nearly dropping her wrap in the process. "Please tell me it wasn't named in irony?"

Heero felt his lips curl, a sensation he was getting pleasantly used to over the last few weeks, and took a bite out of his wrap.

He let her stew in her own excitement over the course of their journey. This far away from the main city, the Martian roads were barely marked out, with next to no traffic on the way, and it made for a pleasant drive. She spent her time looking over the landscape, green and untouched where the terraforming algae had taken root but hadn't yet been shaped by man-made civilisation.

Every now and then she would twist in her seat to lean out of the window, glancing behind her where two of the moons were translucent in the sky. As an earthling all of her life, and a colonist for most of his, it was a novel sight for both of them and beyond strange to think that in the time they'd been asleep, an entirely new world had been born and bred.

Glancing over at her, and seeing half of her body out of the window, he instinctively slowed down. "Don't stick your head out too far." He warned, every fibre of his being fighting the urge to pull her back in.

"There's nothing around," she protested, shouting against the wind. Despite her protest, she pulled in a little, resting her arms against the open window frame, staring out at the landscape.

And inadvertently presenting her rear within a hand's reach.

Her hair flowed out of the window along with the wind, and the sun setting over the horizon cast an orange glow down the curve of her spine.

When he'd asked her to be his, he'd done so out of a genuine love for her character and person, and in a knowledge that life going forward could not be conceived without her in it.

The last few weeks had made the other important element of a romantic relationship extremely evident.

Heat dusting his cheeks, he thanked the sunset for hiding any outwards signs of his thoughts.

Engaged to marry tough they were, their relationship was still very young, although it felt he'd known her a lifetime. He'd always been taught that certain needs weren't healthy to be ignored, and that to keep himself focused, he should seek to rectify those needs as soon as was possible. He wasn't ignorant. He knew that he was physically attractive, and he'd used that to his advantage during the war, never needing to look far for someone his own age willing to give him what he needed.

This was different. He didn't doubt that handled correctly, he could overcome her sensibilities and Relena would let him take his fill. He also didn't doubt that in doing so, he would single-handedly decimate the delicate balance of trust and respect that their relationship had been built on, and the thought of that terrified him.

He was extremely adept at losing the people close to him.

And so, he kept his eyes more firmly on the road than was strictly necessary, and when darkness came she was finally asleep, curled up with her knees drawn into her chest.

Driving over the Martian plain at night wasn't something to take lightly. It was rocky terrain as it was, and this far out there was no man-made lighting to make them clear. But, there would be no motels this far out and there was very little point in him stopping for the night. He was conscious that outside the vehicle, the temperatures would be sub-zero, and so he'd have to keep the heating on anyway.

Every now and again, she would adjust herself in her seat and mumble in her sleep. She was a restless sleeper, always kicking, tugging at the blankets and even speaking things that would make sense to absolutely nobody. Having someone fight him in his sleep wasn't idea but was something he was determined to get used to.

When he saw the familiar sight of the sun glistening off of water, he knew their journey was at an end. A good thing, considering he was about due a refuel.

The sun glowed yellow as it reflected off a large lake in the distance, and the roads once more became smoother, lined and signed. There was mountainous quality to the landscape and as he came over a large hill it was all downhill driving until they reached their destination.

Spotting a familiar landmark up ahead, he moved to wake her.

"Relena," he called, ignoring the feeling of her thigh beneath his hands as he rocked her awake, "look."

Stirring, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes groggily, she sat upright, stretching the crick from her neck. He would have to apologise for the sleeping conditions later.

Pinned to the bark of an overgrown tree, a wooden hand-painted sign cast a shadow onto the road in front of them.

 _Welcome to Eden._

The look of amused wonderment on her face was clearly worth the journey.

"You weren't joking." She teased, a mixture of fatigue and love in her voice that made his heart race.

For the first time since her political death, since he taken her promise to be his, he felt like he'd earned the right to be her husband.

He figured he'd enjoy it while it lasted.

She hadn't yet seen the house…

Next: A very handy man does sexy handsy things.


	3. Chapter 3

**3\. Fixer Upper**

Watching the world that was to be her new home slowly reveal itself to her, mountain by stream by wild deer crossing, was one of the most wonder filled moments of her life. She'd done a lot in her short eighteen years, and even as a child had seen more than most were able to see in a lifetime but that feeling of renewed wanderlust for the world intensified like a hum in her chest. Well. _A_ world.

If somebody had told her that she would one day witness an entire planet build in the image of her own beloved Earth, but with its own charm and character that she couldn't help but fall for, she would have rolled her eyes.

The last few weeks of exploring it with Heero had been something of an unexpected treat. She had prepared herself for a hard time, sleeping on lumpy beds in rooms comparable to a sty, eating cheap food that tasted entirely of the preservatives used to transport them from Earth, but Heero made a statement from the very start that she now knew to be true. Seeing the best in things was her hidden talent.

She'd enjoyed the feeling of having a bath, spending all the time she wanted in there without the niggling feeling in the back of her mind pushing her and constantly reminding her that she needed to do something. Pulling comfortable clothes on top with nobody to care what she looked like.

And crawling into bed with no care or concept of when she would need to rise again.

At first, he had been cautiously distant with her, keeping her at arm's length, as though he expected her to repeal her acceptance of his proposal on the spot. When he was insistent in procuring twin accommodation, and getting them piteous looks from the staff, she'd taken over administration of their logistics, knowing that any attempt made to know him as a husband would need to be initiated by her.

When he'd first seen the room with a double bed, she'd had to pull on his arm to top him giving his two pennies to the receptionist. She wasn't sure how to portray in words that she wanted to try sleeping in the same bed. Everything she thought of sounded overly bold and suggested something far too advanced for their very new relationship. But he seemed to get the picture, the muscles in his arm relaxing with his understanding and that night she had slept beside what could only be called a human radiator.

The last few weeks had been a whirlwind of new and firsts and now all she could thing about was the first home she could truly call hers.

She would have liked to think Heero felt the same but there was a subtlety to his demeanour, the way he gripped the wheel with both hands rather than his usual relaxed one, the deepness of his breathing, that told her he was anxious.

Which intrigued her more than worried her.

"Is there a town around here?" She asked, trying to glean some level of information from him, "We'd need a few basics to start with. Soap, tea, bottled water…"

"There's a small village store not far from the house," he explained, though his tension hadn't eased, "but you'll need to drive to a town called New Thanet to buy everything else."

"But I don't drive," Relena pointed out, quite rightly. Did he expect her to stay put while he did whatever it was he planned on doing?

"You can learn." He replied simply, and though he was right, Relena felt the need to argue her case on this one. Relena wasn't good at taking instruction, even at school, and there would be nobody else to teach her but him. If there was one sure and certain way to end their marriage before the ink had dried on their papers, this would be it.

He would leave her from frustration if nothing else.

"Relax," he told her, and she realised she'd been biting her lip. She guessed she wasn't the only one who had readable anxiety, and for a moment his calm tone soothed her. "There'll be nobody to hit for a fifteen mile radius."

Flushing indignantly she swatted his shoulder for that remark, only to catch the smile pricking at the corner of his mouth. Amusement at her expense seemed to be a trademark of his wit, but she strangely enjoyed it. The fifteen year old she'd met on a beach was a far cry from the man driving her to her marital home, and his anxiety seemed to have dissipated entirely.

She smiled, lay her head back and let the warm breeze thread through her hair. Whatever he was nervous about, she had every confidence they could face it together.

A sentiment which lasted about as long as their remaining road time.

Whatever she had expected of her countryside Martian home, it wasn't this. From a distance, it had looked almost like a Georgian lake house, all pale yellow brick and white sash windows, with a wooden jetty reaching into the flawless lake surface. Up close…it was a Georgian lake house that had seen the blitz.

She ran her hand over the wooden beams that housed a porch, brushing moss off of the surface. This place clearly hadn't been lived in for a long time, and seeing as Mars was just under thirty years old, she had no doubt the algae had accelerated its abandoned look.

She reached for the doorknob, twisting to find an already opened door. To her surprise, it didn't look like it had a lock.

"It's safe out here," Heero's voice came from just behind her and she started. Relena still wasn't used to how he did that. "People have no need to lock their doors."

Relena nodded. It was a strange thought, a world where people trusted each other so that they felt no need for defence. It was a world she had once tried to build in its entirety, and while she knew that was impossible on a larger scale, seeing the micro simplicity of that plain ideal in action was cathartic.

The first thing that struck her as she stepped inside was the sound. Her soft soled shoes were rubber but she could hear every step she made. She took a deep breath and found the air with that unmistakable musk of age, a nostalgic smell that took her back to the attic and the wine cellar in her childhood home, the places she loved to explore with a new treasure to find every day.

"Hang on," she heard him speak through the dark, and heard him walk away from her. A few seconds later, light filled the space around her, and she squinted for the brightness of it.

Large bay windows let the light in where the sun reflected on the lake, and the dust danced in its beams. Hard wood floors, in need of a polish, still shone around her, as though every surface and detail was made to worship the sun. An open living room was connected by archway to a dining area.

Her heart emboldened, she followed the path around, dining room connecting to a large kitchen. She was never a domestic woman. Girls of her position were taught a different kind of domesticity, and it involved managing a household staff more than cooking and cleaning. She idly wondered how on earth she would manage this place by herself.

Four upper rooms later, she came back down the stairs, finding Heero waiting for her sat on the bottom step.

Taking her seat beside him, and unable to keep the smile from her face, she leaned to the side and rest her head on his shoulder, which was quickly becoming her favourite place to put it.

"Thank you." She said, meaning it from the depths of her heart.

She wasn't sure if it was intentional or not, but everything about this place was home to her in a way that went beyond the superficial. The memories of her childhood. The safe haven. The light of the sun in every possible corner.

"It's a work in progress," he explained, anxiety gone and replaced by a fatigue. She guiltily remembered he'd been driving this entire time. "I'll get started tomorrow."

A feeling welled up in her chest that she could almost call painful if it didn't follow her complete contentment, and for all she had been avoiding the action, for all they had been dancing around the reality of their new-found status, the kiss she placed on his cheek had never felt better placed.

His head turned to look at her with the wide-eyed innocence she always knew he had buried, keeping her eyes locked with his as she touched her lips lightly to his. His eyes softened, replaced with a warmth that was uniquely his, and when his hand came up to cup her cheek, drawing her in to explore this new development more thoroughly, every nerve and fibre of her sang.

 _So, this chapter went in a different direction than planned. Originally, it had some lime-ish content in there but it didn't seem to fit. Yet. It will come, as well as full-blown earth-shattering cirtus explosions but for now, they're just too sweet. Need to dirty them up a little first. So Heero the sexy handyman will come...next chapter :D_


	4. Chapter 4

Top and Tails

Relena was sure there was something in this world Heero could not do, but apparently turning the empty shell of a house into a home fit for a moderately comfortable lifestyle wasn't one of them.

Heero had known that the place he'd purchased for them was a fixer upper but not the extent of it. He'd had a set of criteria and this house matched. It needed to be away from the bulk of Martian civilization, large enough to live family life (something that kept her up at night thinking through the implications) and away from any lines of flight, trade or wider communication. The rest would work itself out.

She'd sat down in her first night there and lamented the time it would take to make the house habitable. Another thing Heero had turned out to be good at, however, was distracting unnecessarily negative thoughts with a very talented mouth.

After his first kiss, as tentative as it was, something had lifted from him. She wasn't sure if he was waiting for her approval of the life he had tried to forge for them before accepting himself, truly, as her husband to be or if there was something else that had been holding him back. He would tell her in his own time. All she knew and cared about now was the way his lips skimmed lightly down her neck at night, his breath fanning gently over her ear as he went over the next day's work schedule.

How the man could do something so mind-numbingly intimate while talking about the most mundane of things she couldn't fathom.

That very talented mouth hadn't lied even a single night. He'd set out in the morning to do as he'd promised and would put down his tools when it was done.

It was oddly satisfying to watch him work. He had strong hands and a dexterity that made such things easy for him. Last night's whispers foretold, finally, the adding of electrical wiring throughout the now stabilized, cleaned, and gutted husk of their home.

He pulled insulated wire from their reels and neatly stapled them into place, until the wall cavity areas looked like giant circuits. It made no sense to her, rather much like a puzzle, but she was sure to him it all fit into the right place and with the safest method.

He was lean muscled physique, male competence in dirty jeans and traditionally a woman's clichéd fantasy and as much as she loved watching him…she felt restless.

She was never much to sit around and do nothing while others did the hard work for her. Even when explicitly told. Ordered, even. So it took all of her strength of will not to interfere when he was working.

"It's an easy enough task to do alone." He'd told her when she offered, his polite way of telling her she'd probably just get in the way. Once upon a time those would have been his words exactly but she supposed she appreciated his efforts to employ diplomacy.

And so, she did the only thing she could do, as a newly christened housewife.

Make lunch.

She walked out to the garden at the back, or what she assumed was once a garden. It had overgrown drastically, with weeds stretching all the way down to the jetty. She lost sight of her knees as she waded through the tall grass to an apple tree that she'd sort of adopted. Having arrived in the height of the apple season, the sickening sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground outside had overwhelmed her being just below their to-be-bedroom window. And so she pruned it, cleared a path around it and collected its fruits from the ground daily.

Free food was a good thing right now, seeing as Eden village was a steep walk up hill and she wasn't sure how long she would get away with using the hijacked credit card of "Mrs. Kimura".

Turning a few around in her hands to make her selection, she walked back inside with her prize.

She was far from an accomplished cook. Typically, so was he. Food preparation was something they would both have to learn but for now, the simple things kept them sweet. She peeled the red apple in one strand, cored it and cut into slices before arranging neatly on a plate.

"Heero, lunch!" She called out to him, her voice echoing through the empty house, and she heard the drill slow to a halt. Unwrapping the cheese and the bread she started to hack thick chunks of cheese into even thicker slices of bread. At least he couldn't say he wasn't well fed…

He walked into their makeshift kitchen area wiping the dirt from his hands onto his jeans, his version of cleaning up for a meal but she could hardly tell him off for it.

"I'd like to call this a _crouton de fromage avec bague du pomme_ but it's a cheese sandwich and bits of apple in a circle." She announced, putting his meal down in front of him ceremoniously.

"The apple in a circle is artistic genius." He smirked, picking a piece up and crunching down on it, "And goes well with the astringency of the cheese."

She sighed and sat down into the rickety chair next to him. "The astringency is a new thing. I think that wheel of cheese is nearing its expiry. Can you take me into town tomorrow?"

He nodded, savoring his mouthful before swallowing. "I need a few things to finish off the generator anyway. These apples are getting sweeter."

Taking a bite for herself she found he was right. The earlier crop had been a bit sour, though edible. They were finally becoming pleasant to eat. "I'm glad. If I didn't have one small victory soon I think I would have made a mischief of myself just to stay entertained."

"Stay away from the tools," he warned her in mock severity before taking another chunk from his brick of a sandwich.

"Never again, I promise." She smiled, a hum of warmth in her heart eating away at her malcontent and doubt. It was so echoingly familiar this scene and yet so incredibly different. "What if I only ever serve you bits of apple? I'm sure I can get that right." She asked, jesting, expecting his normal wit back at her.

Instead he just picked up another piece, staring at her intently. Her breathing caught. She weakened under that look. That was the look that paralyzed her in a web of his creation, keeping her captive so his lips could play games with her body and his voice could claim her soul.

He put the slice to her lips and she followed his prompt, slowly taking a bite, her eyes never leaving his.

"It was good enough for me once." He murmured, a deep richness that had always been his, before claiming the other half of the slice as his own.

She blushed fondly.

The time after the invasion of the Barton Foundation upon the Earth had been difficult. There was no political stability, with only emergency leaders in place temporarily and people being rehomed, families trying to find each other, bodies to be identified.

She was sure Heero would use the pandemonium to facilitate his famous disappearing act, but when she'd visited a room she expected to find empty, he was still there. His injuries were many and despite having grown in the year since last she saw him, she could already see the effects laying bedbound and under medication were having on him.

When she took him in he didn't protest. Lounging in her living room, on the bay window seat, she asked him why. "You asked me to let you." At the time, she wondered why on Earth he would respect her wishes now out of all the times he'd ignored them.

He took his food in small doses. A cut up apple was the perfect size and had the correct nutrition for his body to handle and so it became a ritual, for her to prepare it and for him to accept with a murmur of gratitude that sounded less and less awkward as time went on.

She wasn't expected back into the political world until the government re-established its leadership. She wasn't a leader, despite their asking, but she would always support them in the diplomatic way she knew best when they were ready for her. And so, her days were spent cutting up more and more apples as time went on. She was certain he must have been sick of them, but they preceded a conversation as naturally as a handshake preceded an introduction.

They talked about relevant things at first. The important things. And then other topics filtered in.

He was competitive, as it turned out. He liked to play all sorts of games, as long as they had an end objective and he was challenged to meet it. He was a man after her own heart in that respect, and in the virtues of keeping him entertained she brought in cards and boards a plenty.

Their scores were tied until she'd brought in an old chess board, once upon a time used by kings to size up their enemies, thinking it simply to be an interesting piece of history. When he'd challenged her on it, it somehow felt naughty. Like a schoolgirl being caught smoking behind the bike sheds. The game lasted hours, and she found she could no more read him than he could her. Eventually, she'd fallen asleep in that bay seat with him and woke up the next morning with both of their kings toppled onto the floor.

And her body crooked comfortably under his arm. He'd awoken seconds later, eyes fluttering open to meet hers, a tenderness there in the open that he didn't bother to hide. If he'd thought anything of the situation, or of the redness that spread a burning trail across her face, he didn't say it.

He simply disappeared.

The clack of one plate being stacked on top of the other broke her from her day dream.

"Oh. That was fast." She flustered, the memory still fresh on her mind, tingling her skin.

"I want to get the wiring finished before I finish the generator tomorrow." He reasoned. All traces of his earlier intensity gone and replaced with cool, rational, plan-of-action Heero. Part of her wanted to say something to get him to stay another while longer, to look at her like that again and keep that heat growing inside her growing, use that talented mouth of his on her in those places he had found that made her knees weak, her lips, her ears, her neck and…places he hadn't yet.

"Heero!" She called out as he moved to walk back out of the room. He stopped at the alarmed tone of her voice and looked back, concern questioning on his brow.

Unsure what to say, and knowing she couldn't very well tell him the truth, she fumbled for something to fill the awkward silence she'd created for herself.

"I…wonder if other things will grow? In the garden, I mean."

Heero wasn't an unobservant person. One didn't do the things he did without that gift. All he needed was to see the heat on her face, the way her chest rose and fell that little bit harder, the way she shifted uncomfortably at the edge of her seat and he would know her condition.

"It should do. Hardier crops at least, like potatoes. It would save you having to go to the village and it'll give you something of your own in this house to work on." The look he gave her on the way out was kind, but telling.

He knew.

If he'd progressed their intimacy then, she would have allowed him, whatever and however far that entailed.

But he didn't and she felt the chill of the air from her window for the first time as she wondered why.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a disgracefully hot day when they pulled up to the Eden Village general store, with every surface inside Heero's newly acquired truck searing to the touch and the air waving as though fleeing from the intense heat of the roughly-beaten road. The only thing that had convinced her to leave the shade of their home was the promise that once the generator was running, the air conditioning would follow.

"The parts I need are at the scrap yard down the road," he helped her out of the vehicle and locked up behind him. "Back in twenty minutes?"

Relena fished through the pockets of her jeans for her stolen credit card, panicking slightly when the only thing she found was lint and an old tissue before hear heat-addled brain remembered the other pocket.

She looked over into the side mirror and gave herself a quick check over. Her once long blonde hair had been trimmed down to chin length in a messy bob, something she wouldn't have chosen for herself but lacking any skill with a pair of scissors apparently, it made the uneven sides look somewhat stylish. Importantly, she didn't recognise herself, and so it stood to reason nobody else would either.

Walking into the store was a gift from God if ever she felt one, the blast of the air conditioner like a kiss from the heavens. It wasn't until a toddler ran past her legs and nearly pushed her back out of the door she realised just standing there in the entrance spaced out and letting all the heat in was rude.

In theory, she should be buying non-perishables, cans and cartons and such but she felt compelled to stay longer in the chilled aisles than she needed to. The general store was the largest and only shopping outlet within an hour's drive, but nevertheless had a very basic offering. Picking up a pack of bacon, she checked the expiry dates making sure to get the pack sure to last longest. They didn't venture into town much, for good reason, and she needed to make sure whatever she bought lasted them a few weeks.

Behind her two older ladies were absorbed in their gossip, complaining about the price of meat these days. She didn't disagree. Ever since she'd had to learn to budget her own money, she'd realised how thoroughly out in her own world she had been. They very concept that she would have to weigh up whether she could afford to buy one or both was very new but something she'd had to get over very fast when Heero, with admirable restraint, informed her that she'd spent their entire food budget for the month on one meal.

In the colonies in the lead up to the war, he informed her, a loaf of bread cost about one hundredth of the meal she had bought. And that many people had to choose between a loaf of bread and a container of water. She had never felt so ashamed to have ever been in a position of power, to have so passionately disavowed the act of war when there were so many people who had so few alternatives than to literally fight for their lives.

"Oh!" She stumbled forward nearly into the fridge (she almost didn't object) as something nearly knocked her legs out from under her.

"Oh my! This stupid cart, I always get the one with the rebellious wheel!" One of the ladies from earlier picked up the pack of bacon she'd dropped and put it into her basket for her, before squeezing a bit of hand sanitizer onto her hand from her purse.

"Ah, you must be the elusive new owner of the lake house." She spoke authoritatively, like her old headmistress, and Relena almost felt the need to bow in deference. "I know every face around here, my dear, and I would remember if I'd seen yours. You're quite pretty aren't you? Shame about the hair. You can't be more than twenty surely?"

It was a lot of prying questions, and one barely veiled insult, all fired off in a row and she was suddenly reminded of flashing cameras and persistent paparazzi. "Um…" she began, not getting a word in edgewise before a heavily sanitized hand shook hers firmly.

"Mrs Green. I'm head of the women's circle here. You will join us next Sunday won't you?" before she could answer the greying but energetic women turned around and bellowed over the aisle. "Beth, come and meet…I'm sorry dear I didn't catch your name?"

 _Because you didn't catch a breath,_ she wanted to retort, but smiled in the way that came second nature to a diplomat. Neutral and giving away nothing.

"Lena," she answered, thoroughly briefed and practised by this point, Heero having gone through the drills of awkward questioning every night since they arrived.

"Oh, dear, I mean your married name? What does your husband do?"

On the one hand she was slightly smug that Heero wasn't as well prepared as he thought he was, but on the other…she had no idea what to say. _The best lies are told close to the truth._

"I have none, I'm afraid, though we are to be married."

As a taller, lankier women she assumed was Beth joined them she exchanged looks and raised eyebrows with Mrs Green that she could only assume meant she had been judged and found wanting.

"I see." Mrs Green said briskly, reaching into her purse and rubbing another dollop of sanitizer onto her meaty hands. If she had fur, Relena would have puffed up for the rudeness of it all, but reminded herself of who she was. A world leader no more, and she was junior to practically the entire world around her for as far as she knew. "Your future husband is the owner of the lake house, correct?"

She fought down the urge to correct her assumption, before realising that she hadn't actually said anything untrue. "Yes, we moved in about three months ago."

"Oh dear, that can't have been easy. I hear it has a lot of work needed, the truest definition of a sty." Relena bristled and felt a powerful urge to defend the home she grown fond and quite proud of, but again, she couldn't deny the increasingly unpleasant woman was right.

"We've been working hard," she answered in a clipped back version of her usual self, all polite but no frills. "and we expect the renovations to be complete before winter. My fiancé is over the road at the moment gathering supplies to finish our generator."

"A generator? How exciting!" Beth piped up for the first time, a girlish quality to her voice that didn't belong at all on the woman it came out of. "We must come to tea Sunday, yes? New ladies always host and I love the view from that old porch in the summer."

Wondering how on earth they knew what the lake looked like from _her_ porch, Mrs Green read her mind. "Another member of the circle used to live in that house before she passed. She's terribly missed, it truly was a splendid house. It's good to have a new young woman to take up her mantle. We shall see you Sunday."

And before she could protest, they swarmed off in a flurry of frumpy skirts and misbehaving carts, the twitter of passing judgement, leaving her feeling both as though she'd thoroughly screwed something up and that she'd somehow lost a fight.

When she got back to the truck, Heero still hadn't made his appearance, so she put the bags in the shade and leaned against the side that hadn't been facing the sun all day, feeling a little exhausted. She was sticky from the heat, and a petty seething bubbled under the surface.

Nobody would have spoken to her like that if they knew who she was, and she felt instant shame at the fact she was bothered by it. She was beyond that, surely? She had always been more than her title, her upbringing, her station, _her name_. She had always believed in the equality of all people, the dignity human beings should be granted by the mere fact of their shared humanity. She could demand no more respect than any other person, so why should she expect such from one unpleasant woman and her shadow?

She stared at the same pebble on the ground so intently she didn't notice Heero's return until a loud thud of something large and metallic being chucked into the back of the truck nearly made her jump from her skin.

"God! Heero, warn me before you do that!" She admonished harshly, before picking up her bags and dumping them unceremoniously in the back alongside what seemed to be a cluster of metal tubing. She opened the passenger side door and closed it a little harder than she intended to.

She did not feel good in this moment, her chest feeling tight, and her skin agitated in a way that had nothing to do with the heat. It wasn't fair to take it out on Heero, whatever _it_ was but she had to have somewhere to direct her ire.

Heero climbed into the driver side, closing his door with a measured calmness that must have been intentional. He didn't start the engine. He just looked at her, something she chose to ignore. She didn't feel like explaining herself.

When she realised he had no intention of going anywhere until she did something other than scowl at the dash, she muttered a quiet apology. She genuinely was. He had nothing to do with the way she was feeling. In all honestly, she didn't know what _did_ have anything to do with the way she was feeling. She just was. And if she had to look at him at that moment and admit that to him, she would feel more shame than she could bear.

"Can we just go home, please?" She asked, both petulance and contrition in her quiet request. Apparently, it wasn't enough.

By some small act of mercy, Heero turned on the engine and let the air con get itself going.

"If you're gunning for a fight Relena, you need to think twice before aiming at me." There was such a tone in his voice. It should have sounded threatening; he was good at that. But it was such a mixture of disappointment and understanding she felt tears she didn't realise had been building up stinging behind her eyes.

"What happened?" He asked, and a hand landing gently over hers finally made he look at him.

She didn't know how to answer. She could give him the run by of events but even to herself it sounded baseless and completely inane. Three months was a short amount of time really, but for two people who had already been through so much, those three months where they were allowed to just exist together for no other reason than that they chose to meant things had progressed quicker than they could ever had fighting three harrowing wars. He touched her hand because it brought him closer to her and she owed him the full explanation even if it placed her a little lower in his esteem.

"I don't know who I am anymore." She answered honestly, surprising even herself. "I understand who I'm meant to be now, or at least what to tell people. My name is Lena. I live at the house by the lake with my fiancé. I'm nineteen years old. I migrated from Earth, and that's why I have a strong accent. I stay at home all day pulling weeds from the garden and turning apples into lunch. And I have no idea who that woman is."

Heero, to his credit, was a good listener but it was clear he didn't quite grasp what she was trying to say.

"You're you." He said simply, and it would have been sweet if it wasn't frustrating that the only person she could speak openly to didn't understand her in that moment.

"Next Sunday, two women I don't know and don't care to know will show up on our doorstep expecting hospitality, like they're on a state visit. They'll be expecting me to serve tea and cake, and to join their "women's circle" as though being a woman is my only hobby or personality trait. They'll be expecting to hear all about my future husband and be judged by his merits."

She felt her frustrations rise again, three months of sudden non-existence and being utterly useless as the new woman she was supposed to be, and rather than suppress them, she let her tears flow. It wasn't the first time she'd cried from pure frustration since they'd arrived in this very small town so there was no point in holding back anyway. There would no doubt be many more to come.

"I have no friends. You are wonderful, and I think more of you than anybody. But you'll be going away to wherever it is you have to go soon and then it's just me, and I'm not good company for myself. Relena Darlian was a diplomat who loved to ride her horse, and meet new and interesting people, and go to the latte bar at lunch, and go to wine tastings, and do charity work and go to those stupid balls that I absolutely hated and now I can't stop feeling like they're a big chunk of me that's missing. There was an entire person that was Relena and I'm the only one in the world who can't mourn her death."

The silence was as awkward as she expected. She hadn't intended to go on a rant but once the floodgates were open…

She looked over at him through dampness lingering on her eyelashes. He looked guilty, and she immediately hated herself. It wasn't his fault she'd had to die. Mars could never have moved on without a very public ending of her reign. But she resented him a little for it and there was no use pretending otherwise. She was alive, but everything she was had gone in an instant, like the bullet he'd always promised her.

When he finally decided to speak, it was like he was speaking to a stranger. There was none of the tenderness of the last three months, the air of absolute confidence when he knew he was right, or even the painful self-loathing he'd shared with her the few times he'd been at his most vulnerable. There was nothing. "When I was four, I had a name." He said blandly. "It got taken from me when my mother died. When my father took me, he wouldn't give me his name. When Dr J took me, he gave me a letter, cloned me and switched letter between us depending on who was more likely to kill the other first. I was given another name when I was the only one left, and it belonged to a man I helped kill. I'm still wearing that man's name because I haven't been given another one yet."

Each word felt like a rope around her heart, like the stabbing and twisting of something inside her. She'd always wanted him to tell her about his past, but respected and loved him enough to let him tell her when he was ready, when he felt comfortable doing so. And here he was reeling fact after mind-blowing, terrible fact like he was reading from a bad history textbook, because for whatever reason he felt it necessary to quell her tantrum. He deserved so much better than those few seconds.

"I don't have a name. I've always been whoever I needed to be." He looked at her then. And no matter how measured the tone of his voice, as it had always been his eyes betrayed him. He was unsure, and he was scared, as though everything important to him hinged on these exact minutes. "You've lost your name, your titles and the privilege that come with them, but I have never owned mine. That either bothers you or it doesn't."

Relena thought back to that moment in the store, grasping for a last name she didn't know. Not for one moment did she feel like she was missing something even remotely important. It was just a detail, a tiny thing they hadn't worked out yet that had no bearing on anything other than what they put on a piece of paper and gave other people to call them.

No. What she missed was her life as she knew it, and he'd lost his several times over. She felt very suddenly a fool, the spoiled brat the media had always liked to presume her to be, and so utterly underserving in that moment of the respect of the man who had saved her life, built her a home and promised to build her a family in it. He was whoever he needed to be, and he was everything to her.

"You're Heero." she said quietly, not quite knowing if she'd truly spoken at all. "and Heero is so many things to me, that it's the only name I can ever call you." She whispered.

Her contrition must have shown, because a man who was upset or angry with her couldn't have kissed her the way he did. Nothing about it was comfortable, with a handbrake, a gear stick and several bottles of water in the space between them but it was the first of its kind and nothing seemed to override the absolute lightning flowing through her, like touch itself was electric.

She loved the kisses that came before. They were soft and kind and soothed her into a world where only the two of them needed to be. This came fast and hard, brought her down to reality and without any care for anything in it except them. His lips teased hers open, sucking them lightly before claiming her mouth entirely, robbing her of breath or even the desire to breathe.

His hand cupped the back of her head as his mouth moved down the side of her neck teeth grazing deliciously at pressure points along the way and Relena knew she had to be closer, to feel him closer.

Never breaking the wonderful assault on each other's lips she crawled over to the driver's seat, putting her legs wherever could accommodate them and straddled him, seating herself on his lap and letting him pull her closer to him. She felt something hard press against the inside of her thigh and a thrill washed through her unlike any she'd known.

As though her body already knew the motions, she moved her hips, aligning that tell-tale hardness to the aching pulse between her thighs and her skin went aflame with the friction and the incredible low growl that rumbled against her neck.

She was hypnotised by it, all of it. She could feel something beginning to grow each time she rubbed her sensitive mound against his obvious arousal, clenching for something that wasn't there but desperately needed to be. Her breathing gave way to gasped sighs as the pressure kept growing, burning so hot that had nothing to do with the heat.

The Heero of yesterday would have stopped her, calmed her down with his own version of sweet nothings, and left her feeling utterly bereft of something major and she now knew what. The Heero between her thighs cupped her rear as she faltered her rhythm, and pressed up against her heat, pulling her down and over him again and again, biting where he could and soothing over with his tongue between deep, heated groans.

He kissed her way back up her neck, removed one hand from her rear to brush her hair away from her ear, and with a heat in his voice she'd never heard before he whispered things in her ear that were far from sweet.

"Let it happen." He coerced, each word going through her and directly to her molten core, "Come on."

Her breathing got suddenly faster, her blood rushing south so quickly she nearly lost her balance. He kept grinding up into her sensitive heat, before quickly pulling down her camisole and bra, freeing one perky nipple and clamping his lips around it, tugging sharply.

She made a sound she didn't know she could make, like a cry and a scream all contained by one long moan. She could feel herself clench rhythmically, her racing pulse sending shock waves over her stomach, her aching thighs, and the hot sensitive bundle of nerves he had practically dry humped into her first orgasm.

Her first thought as she came down was of the air conditioner, and the way the cold air felt like feathers against her skin. It was nice. Her second thought was that her nipple was hard, and it needed to escape the cold air. And her third was of the man, currently stroking one lazy hand over the small of her back and placing gentle kisses on her neck.

And that was when her sensibilities started to return.

"Mmm. Don't, I'm sweaty." She mumbled, as though any energy to talk properly had left her.

"We're in a public place, I think propriety left us a while back." He retorted with the dryness she'd grown to love.

And that's when _sense_ returned.

Pushing her one bared breast back into her bra and extracting herself from astride a very prominent erection inside a used truck within the span of only a few seconds wasn't a skill she would have ever claimed to need but here she was.

Her eyes took a frantic dart out of the windows. "Oh God. Are they still inside the store? What if they saw?!"

"If you mean the two old women clearly unable to mind their own business, I'm sure they'd think Lena Lowe a woman who doesn't give a fuck what they think."

It took Relena a good few second to digest his meaning. The fact he'd suggested they'd been seen fell on deaf ears, and a smile slowly spread across her face, brighter than the sun the plagued them that day. "Lowe?"

"It's my family name. My father's name. I've never really cared what name I'm given but I care that I have one to give you." He had a small smile on his face, and she couldn't have adored him more than in that moment.

"And what's your given name?" She asked, a little overwhelmed by this little piece of him that seemed to contain so much.

"Odin." He said simply. "But my father called me 'boy' so I'm not attached to it." He'd said it as a joke but Relena still felt the sadness behind it. He was right. What's in a name?

"You're Heero, I'm afraid. Even if everybody else in the universe calls you something else, you're Heero to me. Call it a fond habit."

She smirked, knowing she'd made up her mind and there would be very little point in trying to get her to change it. "And you're Relena wearing a new name. It's up to you how to want to wear it."

She pondered that for a moment. Lena Lowe was a book with many blank pages she could write in. After all, who ever really defined themselves by their teens?

"Heero?"

"Mm?" He answered, putting the truck into gear with a self-satisfied curl on his lip.

"…I think I need a job."

It's been a stupidly long time since I updated this but with good reason. I wrote three whole new chapters and they got deleted and it just sucked too hard to have to rewrite it all. But all of a sudden over the last few months, fandom has come out of the woodwork and I'm getting request after request to finish it and I was just too flattered not to. It's amazing after all these years the GW community still thrives and still takes the time to send messages me about my fanfics. Thank you those who did - I needed the boost.


End file.
